Focus

The other day, Phil Stutz and I were chatting about the power of going ALL IN on ONE thing. We talked about how hard it is to do but how powerful it is once we do it.

Let’s revisit Cal Newport’s Deep Work for another genius idea.

Back in the day, we chatted about Cal Newport’s Deep Work Equation.

In our last +1, we talked about planting our most important seeds in the spots that get the most sun. (Quick check in: Are YOUR most important goal-seeds getting the best energy from you on a consistent basis?!)

Herbert Simon won the Nobel Prize in Economics. He was one of the early thought leaders in the field of “attention economics.”

Gold-medal-winning mental toughness coach and author Lanny Bassham is all about focusing on the PROCESS of goal achievement. He tells a great story about one of his clients—a pro golfer.

Continuing our theme of how to Optimize our productivity, let’s talk about an Idea from Tim Ferris.

Here’s another Big Idea from Brian Tracy that you’ll find echoed among all the great productivity gurus.

Let’s go back to our Motivation Equation for Today’s +1.

Jason Selk is one of the world’s leading mental toughness coaches. He tells us that the best among us have a “relentless solution focus.”Note: RELENTLESS solution focus.

In our last +1, we talked about single-mindedly focusing. Today we’ll talk about its opposite: “continuous partial attention.”

In our last +1, we talked about how the Peak Performance guys recommend we craft our optimal work-to-rest ratio.

Lanny Bassham won a gold medal in rifle shooting. We’ve talked about him and his wisdom from With Winning in Mind a number of times.

One of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “First Things First.” He also wrote a whole book by the same name.

Deep Work.

Matt McCall is one of the leading venture capitalists in the world. He also happens to be a friend and advisor and personal investor in Heroic. (And, perhaps most importantly, his license plate says “KARMA” which I think is pretty epically cool.)

In our last +1, we had some fun playing with Cal Newport’s Deep Work equation. We modified it from:

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that we are the superheroes of our own lives. Our ultimate supervillain? Technology. (At least when used sub-optimally.)

In our last +1, we talked about my impulsive little foray into a Dropbox Paper chat—allowing myself to get distracted reacting to some inputs BEFORE doing my (pre-inputs!) Deep Work.

This morning I did my normal thing. Starting last night with shutdown complete, etc. You know the drill.

Creative and reactive.

As I was writing that last +1 about our two Goddesses, some sort of truck starting beeping down the street.

Quick quiz today: Do you know how often the average American checks his or her smartphone?

Here’s another little gem from Dan Pink’s To Sell Is Human. (The man is a brilliant writer and a treasure-trove of goodness.)

Continuing our theme of hammering our #1 Wildly Important Goal, let’s talk a little more (again) about WINning.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that, if we could figure out how to take 30 EXPONENTIAL steps, we’d be able to hop in a rocket and go around the Earth two DOZEN times.

Have you ever heard about the Invisible Gorilla?

Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky is a great book.

Today we’re going to meet a woman named Bluma Zeigarnik.

In our last +1, we had fun taking the first step in building our Agency.

Steve Chandler has a new book called CREATOR. It’s awesome.

A few +1s ago, I invited you to join me and play The 100,000 Game.

Have you ever heard of “The iPhone Effect”?

Alexander Graham Bell once said: “Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

Multitasking is a myth.

We’ve established the fact that our brains don’t have parallel processors like a computer. As much as we’d like to think that we can multitask, we can’t.

As you may have noticed, I’m a bit obsessed about the etymology of cool words. 😃

Wrapping up our fun tour through the brilliant life-design system called “Make Time” created by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, let’s talk about what they call “time craters.”

In Born for This, Chris Guillebeau tells us that, according to legend, Warren Buffet once gave a struggling friend a three steps process for setting goals. Here’s the quick look.

In our last couple +1s we created some momentum with Newton’s First Law. 🤓

Continuing our Productivity 101 theme, here’s another gem from the 4DX guys.

Here’s another gem from our Procrastination-Fighting SuperResearcher, Tim Pychyl.

As you probably noticed if you’ve been following along, I recently rebooted the PhilosophersNotes TV series.

A few +1s ago, we talked about Manoush Zomorodi’s great book Bored and Brilliant. We reflected on the fact that 25 minutes of time wasting per day equates to 2 YEARS of your life over the long run. (That’s C R A Z Y. You delete THAT app yet?)

Try this little experiment.

While we’re on a roll with the 4 Disciplines of Execution, let’s circle back and talk a bit more about the Lead vs. Lag Measures.

We talk a lot about the value of going deep and creating, as Peter Drucker puts it in The Effective Executive “large quantums of time” to focus on ONE Thing as Gary Keller puts it. (In fact, as we’ve discussed, Keller tells us that creating “time blocks” where we single-mindedly focus on the most important thing is THE #1 “power tool” of time management.)

In our last several +1s, we’ve been talking about The Power of Agency.

A few +1s ago we spent some time with Jim Kwik and his brilliant book Limitless.

The other day I was flipping through a jumbo, 3-inch wide, 3-ring binder of my very first 100 PhilosophersNotes.

We’re officially on a roll with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We’ve covered Habit #1: Be Proactive and Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind.

In his classic book on Creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi walks us through the science of what makes extraordinary creators so extraordinary.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that we never want to confuse ourselves with visions of an entire lifetime at once.

Nir Eyal wrote the playbook that pretty much all of the major tech companies use to create their super-compelling (addictive/Irresistible?) web sites, apps, etc. The book is called Hooked.

In our last +1 we talked about Spinny Fingers and how to quickly regain our equanimity when life spins us around.

Continuing our theme of making TODAY (and every day!) a Masterpiece Day, let’s take a quick look at Time Blocks.

Cal Newport has a very big brain. He got his Ph.D. from MIT and is a professor of Computer Science at Georgetown. He also wrote one of my favorite books: Deep Work.

In our last +1, we talked about the power of focusing the sun’s rays via The Psychology of Utter Commitment.

Continuing our theme of making sure we’re oscillating to optimize our energy, let’s focus on the end of our workday.

Continuing our focus on how to conquer digital addiction, let’s talk about a super simple way to get a little more clarity on the trade-offs you might be making and create a little more motivation to rock it.

Did you know there’s actually a science of daydreaming? It’s true. Thank you, awesome researchers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole idea of “neutral” thinking since I first read about it in Trevor Moawad’s It Takes What It Takes.

In our last +1, we talked about reducing Delay to increase Motivation.

A few +1s ago, we briefly mentioned Newton’s First Law of Motion. Let’s talk about it a little more.

In our last +1, we talked about David Brooks‘ wisdom that the word “altruism” is an invention of the 18th century.

In our last +1, we took a quick trip to our garage to recapture a potentially lost micro-moment as Eleanor and I filled up our water jug. (Little by little, drop by drop, btw!)

In our last +1, we talked about the importance of honoring your ultradian rhythms—remembering the fact that our performance atrophies after about 90 minutes of work. Unless we enjoy poor performance, chronic fatigue and depression, we’d be wise to take regular breaks to reboot. 😃

The other day I was preparing for a discussion I had with a Navy SEAL Mental Performance Working Group led by Captain Robert Schoultz.

In our last +1, we talked about matching your mental energy to the right task.

We’ve been talking a fair amount about the idea that some of history’s greatest creators didn’t work all that much. To be clear, they worked hard and (very importantly!) CONSISTENTLY, but the fact is that it’s really hard to put in any more than 4 to 6 hours of really high-quality work.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that we need to train our recovery the same way we train our Deep Work. We want to create nice, rhythmic waves in our lives and prioritize rest. One great way to do that? Deep Play.

In our last +1, we talked about the INFINITE power of Consistency.

In our last +1, we had fun hanging out inside Peter Drucker’s (and I quote) “VERY BIG waste paper basket.”

In our last +1, we talked about Twyla Tharp’s great book The Creative Habit. In addition to seeing who she thinks wins the philosophical tug of war on what makes people creative (effort for the win!), we also talked about establishing our own creative habit of doing some Pre-Input Deep Work every morning.

Continuing our theme of architecting the optimal 4-Hour Workday, let’s talk a little more about some wisdom from Alex Pang (and his great book Rest) on HOW the greatest creators can get away with working so little.

In our last couple +1s, we talked about snoozing our snooze buttons and then throwing away our alarm clocks entirely. (Dare to dream, eh? Hah. 🤓)

In our last +1, we talked about the humble algorithm and Professor Harari’s point that it is, arguably, the single most important concept in our world today.

In our last couple +1s, we’ve talked about Optimizing your FOMO by unplugging from the incessant consumption of the inessential.

The creator of Dilbert wrote a great book called How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.

In our last +1, we talked about Digital Sabbaticals.

Continuing our theme of making waves and riding them to greatness, let’s learn a little more about how Tony Schwartz applies this wisdom to his own life.